


Hogtied + Helpless

by CommanderBunnBunn



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Whump, Whumptober 2020, but don't worry, hogtied, there is a resolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderBunnBunn/pseuds/CommanderBunnBunn
Summary: Day 1 prompt - Let's Hang Out Sometime - Waking up Restrained
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950382
Comments: 20
Kudos: 29





	Hogtied + Helpless

**Author's Note:**

> I decided at the last possible second to participate in Whumptober this year, literally at bedtime last night. I've never done it before, why not give it a shot? I don't plan to do all the days, but I can do a few as inspiration hits.

Mac awoke to silence, so he wasn't sure what startled him awake. Was it a dream he had? His face was throbbing. He tried to move his arms but they were wrenched behind his back and tied to his ankles; he was hogtied on his belly in the dirt in the dark. Basement? Crawlspace? Dungeon? He couldn't smell anything identifying. 

He tried to remember where he was and how he got there. He and Jack were fighting with insurgents...Jack! Where was Jack? 

Jack had been putting up quite a fight when Mac went down. Mac took a direct hit to the nose from a fist and went down quick. That explained the throbbing and the taste of copper. He closed his eyes again in case anyone was watching him. 

It was definitely the first time he'd been hogtied, so he had to figure out his mobility and get out of the restraints to find Jack. His hands tingled, the restraints were tight, but his nimble fingers could feel and identify the knots once he got the feeling back in them. 

The room was dark, but not completely black. There was a light source coming from behind him. If he were to turn his head to face the other way to check out the room and light source, his captors would know he was awake. He had to test it. 

Mac groaned, eyes still closed, and ran his face across the dirt. He dropped his clean cheek to the ground with an exhale and went limp for his potential audience. The ability to withstand or bounce back from a brutal beating was key to Mac and Jack's playing possum. It worked more times than they'd like to admit, but playing possum was a crucial tool for their survival.

Jack loved working the unassuming guy angle. He took people's assumptions about him and used them to his advantage. Sure he was older based on his outward appearance-but he could kick any younger guy's ass in hand to hand combat. He's the hired goon, so he must be dumb-but he is strategic and wise from experience and intellect. He's very badly hurt, he's out and no longer a threat-but he's playing possum and getting ready for a sneak attack. 

Mac hoped Jack got away and finished the mission, but he knew better. Jack would never leave Mac behind. He was probably somewhere being tortured by their captors, or dead...but Mac never let that scenario pop into his head; Jack was clearly not privy to the rules of mortal beings, he certainly didn't act like he was. 

Thirty seconds passed since his big move, and Mac hadn't heard any voices or footsteps moving around the room. If someone was watching him on camera, he may be able to peek through cracked eyelids and not be noticed. He gave it another fifteen seconds before he felt like it was safe to open his eyes and potentially sabotage his ruse.

Mac peeked through his left eye since it was closer to the ground and less obvious to any cameras that may be watching. He saw dirt. He scanned his immediate horizon for exits but the first thing his eyes saw was his partner.

"Shit." Mac thought. Cameras be damned, he opened both eyes to see his partner lying in the same prone position with his wrist and ankles bound together behind him. 

A quick scan of the room revealed no cameras, no doors or windows, just a slightly smaller than closet door sized opening for entry and exit. 

“Jack,” he called out to him in an intense whisper, just in case there was an audience outside the doorway. “Jack!” his second attempt was slightly louder. “Talk to me, give me a sign that you’re faking. We need to come up with an escape plan.” No answer. 

Mac’s heart sank with defeat and his stomach threatened to empty itself if it had anything in it. He bowed his back to lift his head to get a better look, no one was in the room with them to stop him, so Mac went for broke. 

He needed to get a better look at his partner and assess the damage before anything else. The first thing he noticed was a pool of blood darkening the dirt under Jack’s temple. With the dirt soaking it up, it was hard to gauge the amount or even see the wound that was pressed into the ground. A handful of scenarios went through Mac’s head, starting with the worst case scenario - they shot him in the head. Then the counter argument - if they did that, why would they tie him up...unless they tied him up and then shot him while he was on his knees. The image shook him to the core, he needed to disprove the worst theory. 

Movement was difficult due to the positioning of his arms and legs, but Mac managed to inch his way over to his partner by slithering. Ideally, he would have felt the ropes to identify and untie the knots to free himself to help Jack, but his fingers were numb and tingly. They were all but useless. 

Once Mac positioned himself alongside Jack, he watched his chest for rise and fall, but the positioning was too awkward to tell for sure. He had no way to verify anything while tied up. What was worse was that he wasn’t disarmed, his knife was in his hip pocket, he could feel it, but there was no way for him to get it out of his pocket without Jack’s help. If there were no henchmen watching them, and they still had their possessions on them, their captors planned to make this end quickly and sooner than later.

Maybe he could think more clearly if he could make sure Jack was ok...obviously he was not ok, but ok as opposed to the alternative. His own pulse was thumping so hard in his ears that it sounded like he was under water; he needed to get his arms and legs free. 

Mac inched himself like a clock hand toward his partner, wiggling around until his hair was in Jack’s face. At best, the tickle would wake Jack up and they could work together to escape, at worst, if he were really still, he could feel his own hair move from Jack’s breath. He’d feel pretty silly about that if it weren’t such a dire situation. 

It didn't help that Mac's head was still throbbing. He needed to roll to his side to help the blood redistribute to his limbs. Immediately after rolling over, breathing was easier, and Mac felt some relief. He still needed to check on Jack. 

Mac inched closer until his chest was leaning against his partner's wrenched arm. With his face unreasonably close to Jack's, Mac was finally able to verify that he was indeed breathing. It was quick and shallow, but it was there. 

On his side, the sensation started to return to Mac's fingers, but not fast enough to deal with all the ropes, but Jack still had his wrist cuff! Mac shuffled and wiggled back onto his belly and blindly flailed his tethered hands and feet until he made contact with Jack’s arm. Mac found Jack’s wrist and unsnapped the leather cuff. On the inside, parallel to the snaps, Jack kept a very small razor blade about an inch and a half long and a quarter inch wide tucked into a little spot on the inside. Mac machined it himself so that one end was smooth for gripping.

He worked the razor across the ropes, sawing and plucking the strands of the thick rope until his hands were free and his legs no longer forced to fold behind him. With lightning speed, he sat up to unbind his ankles. The relief of the change in position was short lived, he felt a warm tug in his core as soon as he bent over. The charley horse in his abdominal muscles took hold and he gasped. For a moment he tried to stretch out to counter the painful cramp, but he had to keep going. At least he forgot how badly his head was throbbing. 

Sitting up on his knees, he started to cut through Jack’s ropes before he realized that untying the knots would be more expedient since he could actually see them. Mac eased Jack’s feet to the ground before working on his bound wrists. 

“Jack. Hey, Jack.” he called out as he finished freeing his partner. He shook Jack by the shoulder and still got no response. Mac gently rolled Jack to his back and inspected the head wound. Through the dirt from the floor stuck to Jack’s face, he could see that it wasn’t a projectile, but that someone had tried to put his head through a wall. 

“Come on, big guy, wake up. You shouldn’t be out this long.” He patted Jack’s cheek that wasn’t covered in blood and got a weak flinch in response. “That’s better. Now come on, all the way.” Mac looked toward the doorway and his eye caught something hauntingly familiar. With a few giant strides, he hopped over Jack and to the doorway looking for any sort of triggers or detonators. 

The bomb was just beyond the threshold of the doorway at the bottom of a set of stairs. It was a simple explosive device, something set up quickly to be planted and set off soon after the user cleared the area. A timer read 5 minutes 18 seconds. No wonder they weren’t disarmed, they were going to be blown up. 

From the top of the stairs came a little more light, he could see the bomb well enough to tell that disarming it just meant removing the detonator from the explosive. It was a hack job and he made quick work of taking it apart. The problem was, with something this quick, the people that set the bomb were probably close enough to notice when it didn’t explode. 

Mac climbed the steps to listen to what was on the other side of the door. From what he could hear, they were in a retail type area, probably under an abandoned store or work space. There were certainly still civilians milling around. He slid out the door, hating leaving Jack behind even if for only a moment, but he had to discreetly get the area evacuated. 

The shopkeeper he approached took sight of the bleeding blonde and ducked behind her counter. “No, it’s ok. I’m here to help.” Wordlessly she nodded her understanding. “Did you see some people take a bunch of stuff downstairs there?” He pointed to the direction where he’d just come from. She nodded. “How long ago did they leave?” She held up her hand, fingers splayed all the way out. “Five minutes?” She nodded. 

He tried to keep his voice even and calm as not to spook her, but he was in a hurry. “Those men put a bomb down there.” He waited just a moment to make sure she followed. “You have to get out of here, but don’t be obvious. If they see a bunch of people panic and flee, they will know that something went wrong. Got it? OK, is there a back way out of here so you can tell everyone else around here to leave while I go get my partner.”

“Yes.” She finally spoke, voice timid and afraid.

“Great. Make sure you use all the back entrances so they don’t see you leaving. Please. Try to be quick”

She scurried through the shop to the back door, and he checked out the front for anyone suspicious before going back to Jack. 

Jack hadn't moved, so Mac went back to trying to wake him. "Jack, dammit, we have to go before they figure out their bomb didn't go off." Mac pulled his sleeve over his hand and tried to wipe some of the dirt and blood from Jack's face to better assess the injury. It still bled sluggishly, a large gash on his forehead well into his hairline. Mac hissed in sympathy at his feeble attempt to wipe the blood out of Jack's eye. 

Once Mac suspected Jack may have an orbital fracture, he left it alone and debated the best way to carry his partner out and up the stairs. Mac sat Jack up enough so that he could duck under his arm and stand them both up. Jack was deadweight. His head lolled to the side from the unsteady lopsided stance, a downside to them being relatively the same height. "Shit!" Mac exclaimed and pulled Jack so they were chest to chest. His head rested in the crook of Mac's neck, and he slid his feet, one awkward unsteady step in front of the other. 

As he reached the doorway, Mac heard someone approach the top of the stairwell. He pressed Jack against the wall with his body and remained perfectly still and silent. He took in the empty room and realized their only asset was his knife, some cut rope, and the bomb in the hall he couldn't get to without making himself a sitting duck. 

His breathing now labored and rapid from the exertion and the perilous situation, Mac knew they'd be given away if anyone came to the stairs. Mac attempted to hold his breath, but couldn't stop panting. "Sorry, Jack." He whispered and squeezed his eyes shut tight to wait for the inevitable. 

A female voice came from the stairs, "sir? You must leave quickly too. I have a truck."

Mac released his breath with an excited yelp. "Oh, yes. Please. I'll be right up." He got under Jack's arm once again to try to walk/drag him up the stairs. Mac stepped up the bottom step and hefted Jack up by his belt to get his boots over the threshold. The woman peeked down at them and saw their predicament. She rushed down the stairs and ducked under Jack’s other shoulder, and they lugged him up the steps together.

They loaded Jack into the pickup truck, Mac followed suit. The shopkeeper covered them with a canvas tarp and hopped in the cab of the truck to get everyone to safety before the insurgents returned.


End file.
